It is a partial commencement date which applies to parts of the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 – available here – but mostly to the Insolvency Service. Note that the entire Act is not being commenced.

What does it mean?

For now, you still can’t access the processes provided for under the Act, the Debt Relief Notices, Personal Insolvency or Bankruptcy. It just means that the Insolvency Service is up and running. Pressure still needs to be brought on the justice minister, Alan Shatter to commence the entire legislation which he is being frogmarched into introducing, by the IMF – if we were relying on the soporific minister alone to reform our draconian bankruptcy laws, we would have a very long wait indeed.